


No One to Nothing

by orphan_account



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner as Unsub, Agent As Unsub, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Post Foyet, excessive use of commas, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Killing Foyet felt like waking up.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner (referenced)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 53





	No One to Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All Fun and Drinking Games](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1422493) by [Zeborah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeborah/pseuds/Zeborah). 



Putting away criminals was never going to be enough. You knew it when you were thirteen, tiptoeing around your father’s shadow, angry and hurting. You knew it at nineteen, clutching your degree under the sweltering stage lights. Haley knew it, for all that she hid it from herself. Turning to the FBI and acting as a profiler was just the natural progression of things, like coming home after a long day at work. 

Sometimes you think Gideon saw it too; just how easy it is for you to slip in and out of the minds of killers. He used to look at you after the particularly cruel cases, just looking. He’d sit there quietly, watching you play your role as the stern team leader, his face as impassive as a lake. He never talked about it with you, but you think he might’ve tried to if he was around for longer. 

Foyet could see it on you. He could see it, no matter how hard you worked to keep yourself in check. One predator always recognizes another after all. Foyet stuck his fingers through the cracks in your carefully maintained control and ripped you apart at the seams. He couldn’t just leave you as you were, he had to push and push until something dark and vengeful inside you sat up and took notice. It stepped out from behind your ribs and settled itself deep into the marrow of your bones. 

You looked at Foyet, standing proud over the cooling remains of your old life, and Foyet looked back. You know he saw you then, the entirety of you, just as you saw him. And that’s what does it, isn’t it? The utter wrongness of being known and perceived flooded your veins like acid. 

You felt small and wretched and unbelievably whole all at once and it scared you. The sound of liquid dripping onto the floorboards and the pounding of boots on the stairs melted into the white noise of your heart. You've never felt more settled in your skin as you did when you knelt on the floor of your bedroom with Foyet's blood dribbling between your knuckles. 

You killed a man with your bare hands. They write it off as a justified use of force. You tell them that you were afraid for Jack's life and you were. You were terrified for Jack, but that fear flushed from your body when you broke Foyet's nose, replaced with a heady righteousness. You killed a man with your bare hands and, god help you, you liked it. You press your thumb into the bruises on your knuckles and it feels like a job well done. The next couple of days are spent in a fog of anxiety, as you wait for the gnawing ache of guilt to settle in. It never comes. 

Your team assumed you were grieving for Haley - That’s true to an extent. You were always going to lose her eventually, you’d already accepted it.- but you died that day too. You lost yourself somewhere between the third punch and the tenth and you’ll never be the same again. You mourned the loss of him, that fictional version of yourself. All those years and years of work protecting yourself undone in a single moment. Foyet woke something great and terrible inside you. On quiet nights, you can’t help but wonder what you could’ve made with him if you’d had a little more restraint. 

You grieved for Jack as well. He’d lost two parents in a single instant and gained you as a consolation prize. You wouldn’t wish yourself on anybody, especially now, but Jack is yours. He’s all of five years old and he’s the best thing you’ve ever done. You know you should give him up, let him live a normal life where you can’t ruin him. He's still a baby and if he doesn’t remember you, he won't feel the fallout when you inevitably implode. It's not his fault, the way you are, and he doesn't deserve to be punished for it. 

You come real close a couple times, finger hovering over the call button, but in the end you just can’t do it. You’re too selfish to give up the one good thing you have left. So you throw yourself into being a good father but you know that you'll never be good enough at it to matter. You'll get caught eventually, you of all people would know, and the good memories of you that Jack has will always always be tainted by what you are. The best you can do is make sure that Jack never ever ends up like you. 

You know that you’re acting strangely when you finally come back to work. There’s nothing to be done about it. You’re still rebuilding the tattered fragments of your identity. It’s surprisingly hard, slipping back into the mindset of SSA Hotchner. You feel a bit like a quilt; Foyet cut you to shreds and now you have to stitch yourself into the shape of something new. You’re not sure what exactly you’ll look like when you’ve finished but you think it might fit you, all of you, better than your old self did.

It starts like this: you've always had a high mortality rate on cases. You fire your weapon with intent to kill. Deadly force is just that, it's not used for incapacitation. Chances are, if you're on a case and the unsub doesn't come quietly, the unsub doesn't live for long. You're not the only one with a high mortality rate. If you don't get them, you know that Morgan will. Morgan, however, has a police background. You were just a lawyer. Your experience lies in crafting a story for an audience of twelve. Weaving a tale for a single person is much simpler in comparison.

You've always been good with words. You learned to watch yours early and you learned how to wield them as you grew. Now, with a lifetime of experience behind you, you pick your words one by one and arrange them with meticulous intent. They have a heady power to them; one simple word hidden among the rest can escalate an unsub's behavior. It doesn't matter who shoots first. After all, it's you that chose to end a life. 

The team always reacts the same way. Morgan and Dave are always aggravated; glad that a murderer is off the streets but still feeling cheated of true justice. JJ, Reid and Garcia always feel a little bit safer and deeply ashamed for it. Emily strides from case to case, determined not to let them haunt her, but she always drinks a little heavier when an unsub dies. The whole team is solemn but they don't lose sleep over the what-ifs. They've all learned better by now, even Reid. Your bosses don't care if a monster's death could have been prevented. They're too busy congratulating themselves on their shining morality and a job well done.

You know that someday, someone is going to look at your case statistics. You've painted a target on your own back enough times that you're honestly a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet. God knows you've made enough enemies at the Bureau. Someone is going to pour over your file one day, looking for something to nail your coffin shut, and they're going to put the pieces together. They're going to pull you into a little room and question you for hours, waiting for you to slip up. They won't have anything concrete, you've made sure of that, but it'll be enough to warrant a dismissal if they spin it right. You know this. 

It's not fine but it has to be. It's the best case scenario, honestly. An ex-FBI agent is much better as a father figure than a serial killer is. You could take Jack and move states, start fresh. You think about going back to Washington state sometimes. Not back to your old section of it, but somewhere new. Somewhere you could settle down and actually have the time to pick Jack up from school. You'd miss your job but you'd find something to keep yourself occupied. Washington state is big and people go missing there all the time after all. 

Wouldn't that be something? Being on the other end for once. The BAU, come to Washington for an unsub and instead they find you. The entire team, ricocheting from denial to horror to disappointment and back again. You think it might actually be the one thing to make Rossi retire. 

Of course, being caught would kill you. You'd rather die than rot in prison for the rest of your life. You'd rather not die at all but there's only so many ways out of the hole you've dug yourself. You're hurtling towards a fate of your own doing at breakneck speeds and there's nothing you can do to stop yourself. At this point you're just trying to control the fallout for Jack. 

God, poor Jack. You hate doing this to him but you just can't stop yourself can you? You're a shell of a person, a Russian nesting doll of collected personalities. If only one of them was a good father. Jack deserves so much better than you can give him. You wish- you wish you could've been a better person. 

But that's not right, is it? There's still time to be a better person, to make things right. You could stop right now and move on with your life, none the wiser. You could grow old and watch Jack build himself a life and a family. You could spend your days in quiet peace and be content knowing that you were there for your son. You could stop. And that's the root of the problem isn't it?

You don't want to. 

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy howdy, if you've made it this far, thanks for reading! 
> 
> Title is from No One to Nothing by Mother Mother. If you haven't heard it, give it a listen!  
> The idea of Hotch using his communication skills as a murder weapon was taken from "All Fun and Drinking Games" by Zeborah, so go check it out!!  
> Thanks for reading! I don't think there's anything graphic enough to tag but if you need to me to tag anything, please shoot me a message!!!


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